THE PILBARA – KARIJINI AND MILLSTREAM-CHICHESTER NATIONAL PARKS

 The biggest issue I have at the moment is what photos to include (leave out) as there have been just so many great sights (sites) that we want to share with everyone!

After leaving Broome we headed down the highway and made our way to Cape Kedauren where we camped beside a creek for the night. Great little spot. 

Our site at Cape Kedauren

 We then headed into Port Hedland where we took an interesting tour of the BHP port facility. The night was spent at Indee Homestead Station on the way to Karijini National Park. Here we took a drive out on the station to Red Rock (looked like a mini Ayers Rock) to look at a number of indigenous rock carvings. This was done just prior to sunset and gave some great colours.

Sonja on the top of Red Rock

Petroglyphs on Red Rock

 

Sunset at Red Rock

We stayed three nights at Dales Campground in Karijini National Park and used it as our base for visiting the gorges. Over our time there David walked through Dales Gorge, Hancock Gorge, Upper and Lower Weano Gorges, Knox Gorge and part of Kalimna Gorge. Most of them were done on the third day after a 4WD (RED dust) track to the far side of the park. Sonja did Dales Gorge and a couple of the lookouts over the other gorges – quite a challenge on the steep climb out and decided she had done enough. 

Dales Gorge from the top

Snappy Gum

Forces of nature at work

Dales Gorge track

Tight spot in Dales Gorge

Circular Pool - end of the Dales Gorge track

Sonja on the stiff climb out

Handrail Pool - appropriately named!

David in the Spider Walk section of Handcock Gorge

Reflections at Upper Weano Gorge

Not much soil is needed for trees to take root here!

Knox Gorge trail

Knox Gorge from the top

Reflections in Kalimna Gorge

Kalimna Falls

We took the unmade RED gravel road through to Millstream-Chichester National Park where we spent one night on our way to Point Samson. 
 

Millstream

One of the reasons for the red dust covering everything in the car and van

On the drive on the way out we came across the largest number of Desert Pea we have ever seen. There were large masses of red flowers along the roadside along with lots of blues, yellow, white and the green of the spinnifex. We are hoping to see a lot more of the wildflowers on our way south, although we may be a little late in the season. Just have to wait and see.

One of the many road trains that passed us in clouds of red dust

 

Desert Pea covered large areas throughout the Pilbarra

One of two types of Desert Pea

The other Desert Pea

 

We had a look around the old historic town of Cossack before moving onto the caravan park at Point Samson (so Sonja could wash the red out of her hair!). Today had a lot of grey cloud cover and some rain for the first time in ages. Apparently it was the tail-end of the wet weather that was occurring up in the Kimberley. We also discovered today that there had been a fire in Purnululu National Park two weeks after we left that closed the park until it was controlled.

Whilst here, having internet reception, we booked a site at Cape Range National Park for five nights. Bookings must be made for this Park on-line. Great if you know when you are going to be there and if you can get reception. We had to make a change on our predicted dates of travel as we could not book for the time we wanted (only missed by a day) but for the time we did manage, there was only one site available! We are looking forward to our stay here and hope the weather will be kind enough to let us do a bit of snorkeling around the Ningaloo Reef (after all, we don’t want to let the snorkeling gear have a free ride!!).

Our next stop was at Cleaverville, a rest stop overlooking a beach. We had a great view. The water covered a lot of rock, which meant it wasn’t great for swimming (a bit of a cold breeze stopped that anyway), but it was great when the tide went out as there were masses of rock pools to explore. We saw lots of different types of coral, fish, sea slugs, crabs, an octopus and a turtle that had been caught in one of the larger rock pools. We also saw a whale breaching directly out from our site.

 

Our caravan can just be seen on the right at Cleaverville Beach

 

Try tracing the maze in this coral!

Yesterday we drove the short distance to Karratha. We arrived far too early for the caravan park manager to be ready for us, so we had to go and find our own site and get back to him later!  We settled ourselves in and immediately washed clothes and linen to get rid of the red stain that had come from all the dust over the past week. It doesn’t take long to look at all the things of ‘interest’ around Karratha. 

Big toys in the Pilbarra

 
Today we spent the day doing over Dampier and surrounding area. We had a look at the large salt pools run by Rio Tinto and visited the North West Shelf Gas Visitor's Centre to gain a bit of an insight into the processing of the gas and oil that is collected just off the coast from Dampier up to Cossack. We spent some time walking through Deep Creek Gorge in the Burrup Peninsula (Murujuga National Park) searching for petroglyphs. The peninsula has the largest number of petroglyphs in the world, with there being between 500 000 and 1 000 000 of them dating back over 30 000 years. We found a few in the red boulders that make up the cliffs in the gorge. Standing in one spot, we counted more than twenty. We also me a kangaroo that had come down for a drink - allowed us to get within a few metres before departing. There were lots of fire-tail finches having a drink s well. We finished our day with a trip out to Hearsons Cove where David, with the tide on the way out, walked out over half a kilometre into the cove before the water reached his ankles!

Petroglyphs at Deep Creek Gorge

Kangaroo at Deep Creek Gorge

Hearsons Cove - tide out, David walked out well past the point

The red boulders that make up the hills and ranges of the Pilbarra are one of the major things we remember from our trip to the area 30 years ago. They appear to be just big heaps of rocks that have been haphazardly piled on top of each other - like when you push a stick through a pile of screenings - and then the spinnifex has filled in the gaps with an occasional tree taking root. Fascinating country!

The red rocks that make up much of the Pilbarra landscape